Bravo, TBWA\Neboko: Good times at McDonald’s with a 60-piece orchestra and a cheeky song

February 14, 2017

Stunts have lost their gleam over the last couple of years (you can have too much of a good thing), but TBWA/Neboko has reinvigorated the ad stunt with a superstar example.

It’s not just that the agency arranged for a 60-piece live orchestra led by conductor, Guido Dieteren, to launch into an operatic aria whenever a Maestro Burger was ordered at a McDonald’s restaurant in the Netherlands. Nor how perfectly the stunt links to both the campaign message, Always Open for the Good Times, and its core product. The agency also organised a two-way camera feed between the recording studio and the Macca’s restaurant, so that the orchestra could sync its music to the action and the singer could interact with the unwitting diners.

The result is a hugely funny and entertaining video, with the Maestro Burger in the lead role.

The TBWA\Neboko team set up five cameras and microphones around the restaurant to capture consumers as they purchased and bit into the burger. They shot the commercial in one day and filmed 13 customers, but pulled the three consumers with the strongest engagement. Lyrics like “yummy, yummy, yummy…” add to the silliness. And the singer’s insistence (in song) that the diners say their name before eating adds to the fun.

“This commercial sets a very high standard for the spontaneous moments of joy we will capture for McDonald’s in our new campaign. All of us had goosebumps at various occasions and you can see and feel that in the final film. It is always a challenge to create something at this scale – especially when it is live – and we are very happy that McDonald’s is eager to share in this challenging approach.”

The ad is part of a new campaign that will show similar feel-good surprises around the theme, Always Open for Good Times, which is to become the central motto of what McDonald’s wants to be for its guests.

“We are always there for the ‘spontaneous moments of joy’ and we want to highlight these moments.”

The campaign kicked off with a 110 second film in a roadblock on all Dutch national broadcasters and sets the tone for a new direction in McDonald;s advertising – fewer ads, more acts, less fiction, more realness, and more about the experience McDonald’s delivers.